CHAPTER XIX 



THE RAILWAY ERA 



BETWEEN 1801 and 1825 no fewer than twenty-nine " iron 

 railways " were either opened or begun in various parts of 

 Great Britain. The full list is given by John Francis in his 

 " History of the English Railway." It shows, as Francis 

 points out, that from Plymouth to Glasgow, and from Car- 

 narvon to Surrey, " there was scarcely a county where some 

 form of the railway was not used." Most of these new railways 

 were, however, still operated in conjunction with collieries 

 or ironworks and canals or rivers, as the following typical 

 examples show : 



1802 : Sirhowey Tramroad, built by the Monmouthshire 

 Canal Company in conjunction with the Tredegar Iron-works; 

 length, eleven miles ; cost 45,000. 



1809 : Forest of Dean Railway, for conveying coals, timber, 

 ore, etc., to the Severn for shipment ; length, seven and a 

 half miles ; cost 125,000. 



1809 : Severn and Wye Railway, connecting those rivers ; 

 length, 26 miles ; cost 110,000. 



1812 : Penrhynmaur Railway, Anglesey ; a colliery line, 

 seven miles long, consisting of a series of inclined planes. 



1815 : Gloucester and Cheltenham Railway, connecting 

 with the Berkeley Canal at Gloucester. 



1817 : Mansfield and Pinxton Railway, connecting the 

 town of Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, with the Cromford Canal 

 at Pinxton basin, near Alfreton, Derbyshire ; cost 32,800. 



1819 : Plymouth and Dartmoor Railway ; length 30 miles ; 

 cost 35,000. 



1825 : Cromford and High Peak Railway, connecting the 

 Cromford and Peak Forest Canals, and rising, by a series of 

 elevations, 990 feet ; length 34 miles ; cost 164,000. 



The first Act for a really public railway, in the sense in 

 which that term is understood to-day, and as distinct from 



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